An endoscope, such as an otoscope, requires a light source in order to operate. A number of different combinations of endoscope and light source are known in the art.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/892,697, entitled “Medical Apparatus and Endoscope Apparatus,” filed on Sep. 28, 2010, published as U.S. Pub. No. 2011/0077465 on Mar. 31, 2011, now abandoned, to Mizuyoshi et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes medical apparatus that includes an insertion unit and a light source which supplies light into the insertion unit. A surface of the insertion unit includes a first and second irradiation portions, wherein each of the first and second irradiation portions has a pair of irradiation windows which emits the light.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/560,410, entitled “Device for Measuring Physical Properties of the Tympanic Membrane,” filed on May 18, 2006, published as U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0282009 on Dec. 14, 2006, now abandoned, to Oberg et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a device for measuring physical properties of the tympanic membrane. The disclosure states that a device includes a first set of illumination fibres, and that each of the said illumination fibres is connected in a first end to one of a plurality of individually controllable light sources.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/673,822, entitled “Digital-Based Medical Devices,” filed Nov. 9, 2012, published as U.S. Pub. No. 2013/0128223 on May 23, 2013, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,944,596 on Feb. 3, 2015, to Wood et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a hand held ophthalmic examination instrument that uses an illumination system that provides amber colored light from a first light source and white light from a second light source to illuminate a target of interest. An imaging system in cooperation with the illumination system captures digital images of the target of interest as illuminated by the light sources.
Documents incorporated by reference in the present patent application are to be considered an integral part of the application except that, to the extent that any terms are defined in these incorporated documents in a manner that conflicts with definitions made explicitly or implicitly in the present specification, only the definitions in the present specification should be considered.